


the ghost of you

by rib14



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, i love these boys, if u didn't know.......jace has adhd. thx
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 07:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17075981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rib14/pseuds/rib14
Summary: a letter supposedly written by former war hero jace rethal, found in the trash can of a hotel room in centralia.





	the ghost of you

Hi Addax,

Ibex told me he doesn’t know if you’re alive or not, so that probably means you’re not. But I’m stuck in this cramped Centralia hotel room as Ibex prepares for some big, important speech and I have to get all this shit out somewhere, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be to him.

First of all, I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t say it ten years ago, because apparently it’s been ten years, back when the real you was with me, but I fell in love with you during that mission. It started out as this silly crush and I don’t know what happened but—god. I’ll never forget the first time I made you laugh. We were in the officer’s lounge on the Seventh Son waiting for Orth to show up, and I made some comment about him getting “coffee and Tea”, and I knew it was a bad joke even in the moment, but you laughed and you smiled at me, and it felt like the sky opened up. I felt like we had this special secret just for us, that you grinning at me after a bad pun was this beautiful symbol that transcended OriCon and the Diaspora’s hold on us. Just some real propaganda bullshit, you know? I should’ve kissed you right then.

I know now that we were on a set path—no, we weren’t. I know better than to say something like that, better than anyone else in the galaxy, probably. But the big stuff was set in stone. We were going to arrive at Counterweight, Order was going to win, the war would end. One way or another. Like I said, I wish I had just kissed you then. After that day on Counterweight, when Peace became Order, some people from OriCon took me to Mesa to recover. Fairchild was pioneering some new simulation technology and they used it on me, I think at first it was to aid in healing the wounds I’d sustained but then they just kept me there. I guess my body was more useful in its younger and unscarred iteration, already populating propaganda holograms all over the sector.

Writing this now, I’m realizing that it’s hard for me to remember what happened when and in which cycle and as a cause of what… It’s been ten years, after all. Once, we slipped up and got to Gemm just seconds after the Apostolosians had already murdered thousands of refugees. Sokrates and I had been working together trying to get even more refugees to fit in our ships and that extra time gave Apostolos room to strike. That was my first cycle in the simulation, I think. I’m not sure what that should tell you about how I was feeling then. We were silent around the meeting table those last few months in space. You didn’t even tell Sokrates and I that you told us so, even though you did. We didn’t talk much at all that cycle.

But honestly, Addax, I don’t want to talk about tragedy. We’ve both seen too much death already, this I know. What I really, truly want is to share this strange romance I’ve had with you the past 11 years. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to talk about it with another person out loud, so I hope you don’t think it’s too weird, imaginary Addax. Goddamn, that’s what I’m doing isn’t it? I’m out in the real world again, and this is what I do. Crawl back to the nostalgic familiar. I can pretend I’m being reasonable, sorting my thoughts out before I go out in the world, but I don’t believe that for a second. I’m just a coward. But I’ll be a coward in here for just a while longer before I have to be out in that crowd. I mean, it’s just between the two of us, right?

The first time we kissed was only a few days before you killed me at the end of the cycle. Maybe I should still be horrified, but that rhythm feels just like a heartbeat by now. The whole crew had spent the day poring over plans for the coming mission, and the two of us decided in a moment of that cross between stress and boredom that we would sneak out to that big window on the Callisto when no one was looking. All the remaining Apostolosian crew had gone to sleep; we were the only ones there, and we spent a while just gazing into the vastness of space. Then you turned to me, this focused turn—I love the way you give meaning and purpose and thought to the slightest action. And you looked at me with those gorgeous dark brown eyes, the slightest smile on your face. I just couldn’t stop myself. I took your hands in mine, and I leaned up. You were startled at first, but then you met my eyes and you understood, and then your lips met mine. The stars, the wars, the weight of living, it all vanished and the whole world was just you and me forever. Nothing else could dare exist. We both pulled back, and that smile on your face is burned into my memory. “Jace,” you whispered, like the answer to a question, and kissed me again. I think we would’ve gone back to my room had Tea not shown up a few minutes later, smirking at the two of us like she’d won a bet. Maybe she had. “The rest of us were wondering where our heroes had run off to,” she said, amused. She glanced the two of us over as we awkwardly untangled our arms from each other’s waists. “Bit it all makes sense now.” And then I think she winked at you, or maybe I’m making that part up. I did see the two of you having a serious-looking talk in a corridor on the Seventh Son the next day, I assume Tea was making sure you wouldn’t hurt me. I would’ve asked sometime, but I never got the chance, because we were only two days out from Counterweight and it was too close to the end.

There was no linear progression from one cycle to the next, no EarthHome kids show-esque moral at the end of each story that I kept in mind for the next, but there were some cycles where we did get to be closer. Those were my favorite, and the most heartbreaking at the end. But even then, as you were controlled by your own divine and tearing my rigger to pieces, that heartbreak still had a shred of victory. Because I could feel Order too, every time. I hear they’re now calling what I am a stratus. Fitting, because Order felt like a grey and lifeless fog. It haunts me, like I’m sure it must haunt you. I could feel that chilling calm, that detached violence compelling you to take small steps forward. I don’t claim to fully understand how you felt piloting that thing, but the black and white that Order saw the world in was a horror that cloaked itself in mundanity, and it felt like a small sliver of a win to feel my own heart spill out red in those moments. Maybe you could feel it too.

I haven’t learned much about the world yet, so maybe you are still out there. Maybe I’ll even see you in Memorial Square at Ibex’s speech, just another face in the crowd. You won’t even recognize me, won’t even notice me because you’re too busy watching Ibex like a hawk. You always had that focused way of viewing the world, you could approach things with such intent. I admire it about you. Sometimes we would be sitting in the officer’s lounge or lying in my bed or repairing the Panther in the hangar bay and I would be rambling on about something or other, losing six trains of thought at once, and you would just… be gazing right into my eyes. Like I was the most amazing thing you’d ever seen. And every time I noticed, I would forget whatever I was saying, but that’s okay, because I would kiss you instead. Fuck. I miss you, Addax, even though I don’t even know if it was the real you or just my own selfish desires projecting right into my brain or it was a trick played by OriCon to keep me out of the real world… Fuck. I’m sorry, Addax, if you’re still out there, I’m sorry if you’ve felt the same way and I’ve been hiding away like a goddamn coward afraid of his own mistakes and I’m sorry if you don’t, because then I’ve spent the last ten years in a cave, in love with a shadow.

Okay, well, it looks like it’s time to go. See you soon. Haha.

\- Jace Rethal

**Author's Note:**

> thx 4 reading! u can find me on the twitter @jaceaddax


End file.
